2018

The Asia Roundtable on Food Innovation for Improved Nutrition (ARoFIIN) was established in January 2015 to leverage public-private partnerships and bring together experts from across government, academia, industry and civil society, to initiate and sustain a regional, multi-stakeholder dialogue on the role of food innovation in tackling obesity and chronic diseases.

ARoFIIN is convened by the Health Promotion Board (HPB), the Agency for Science, Research and Technology (A*STAR), the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (SICS) and Food Industry Asia (FIA).

ARoFIIN News

Increasing Healthy Behaviours around Schools in Asia

Asia Roundtable on Food Innovation for Improved Nutrition (ARoFIIN), together with the Health Promotion Board (HPB) and Save the Children, hosted a roundtable dialogue that gathered stakeholders from academia, civil society, industry and government, to address how various sectors can collaborate on initiatives that drive nutrition literacy, to build a supportive environment that promotes healthy lifestyles among children in Asia.

Following the launch of the “Tackling Obesity in ASEAN” report in June last year, ARoFIIN conducted a series of follow-up workshops in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, gathering experts across the sectors of academia, government, industry and civil society to discuss and develop sustainable interventions to tackle the growing obesity epidemic. Together, participants identified localised, country-specific interventions to tackle obesity, with a focus on nutrition education to children.Each country had a unique proposal tailored to its respective social and cultural situation, in order to address this multi-factorial, multi-dimensional problem.

A three-pronged approach that aims to communicate key nutrition messages to children as part of their school curriculum, alongside modification of the food and physical activity environments to improve the health status in Thailand, was proposed during the in-country follow-up workshop after the launch of the "Tackling Obesity in ASEAN" report last year. The proposed programme varies significantly from precedent public health interventions, as it introduces a new position for university students specialising in food and nutrition to be the "Nutri-Teachers" of children aged between 4 and 12. The "Nutri-Teachers" will promote nutrition in an interactive and easy-to-understand manner, instilling the importance of proper, recommended nutrition intake in the school curriculum.

Partnerships to Drive Healthy Eating and Active Lifestyles in Malaysia

How can various stakeholders work together to implement and endorse a collaborative action plan, such as nutrition education programmes, to encourage a healthy lifestyle among children? Achieving the common goal of encouraging healthy food choices and increasing physical activity requires multi-stakeholder discussion and collaboration. Speaking with the Asia Roundtable on Food Innovation for Improved Nutrition (ARoFIIN), Dr Feisul Idzwan Mustapha, public health physician with the Ministry of Health, Malaysia, shared about government plans to encourage healthy lifestyles in Malaysia, and the importance of partnership in effecting behaviour change among consumers.

In light of how low/non-calorie sweeteners (LNCS) are constantly subject to intense public debate and scrutiny, Food Industry Asia (FIA) is building a platform for credible and wide-ranging evidence-based narratives around sweeteners and sugars, backed by sound science. “The Case for a Little Sweetness: The Role of Low/Non-Calorie Sweeteners on Health” white paper serves as an educational tool, by demystifying the myths sweeteners have been commonly linked with. It is the first instalment in a series that FIA has embarked on, to explore how sweeteners impact diet and health.

The Role of Public-private Partnerships in Delivering Nutrition Interventions

Collaborations among multiple stakeholders across government, industry, academia and civil society sectors continues to be crucial in delivering programmes to improve nutrition and encourage healthier lifestyles in order to tackle obesity, one of the biggest public healthcare challenges of our time. Food Industry Asia (FIA) works to facilitate multi-stakeholder partnership, and promotes its role as a cost-effective mechanism for delivering positive socio-economic outcomes.

As part of our ongoing efforts to foster multi-stakeholder partnerships and cross-sectorial knowledge-sharing for the ultimate goal of improving health and nutrition in Asia, the ARoFIIN Secretariat has established a presence on LinkedIn. Through this platform, we share key news updates and information on relevant events around the region.

Innovation with a Purpose: The role of technology innovation in accelerating food systems transformation

This report by the World Economic Forum (WEF) highlights how technological innovation can accelerate transformation in food systems, by making them more inclusive, sustainable, efficient, and their outputs healthier and more nutritious.

The Philippine Senate recently passed the National School Feeding Programme Act, which seeks to institutionalise school feeding programmes across the country to address hunger and undernutrition among students. The measure aims to provide enough food to more than 1.3 million Filipino students categorised by the Department of Education as "wasted" or "severely wasted."

Assistant professors Mary Chong and Rob M van Dam from the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore highlight how modern lifestyles, with the luxury of abundance and easy accessibility to many food options, have been a key factor in making Singaporeans vulnerable to diabetes.

The Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Movement was launched recently in Vietnam, together with the implementation of the Prime Minister’s directive on nutrition enhancement. The Ministry of Health will strive to curb malnutrition, micronutrient deficiency and overweight, and prioritise nutritional care for children in the first 1,000 days of life. It will also enhance coordination with relevant ministries and agencies to raise public awareness.

To help teens eat right, the Department of Science and Technology-Food and Nutrition Research Institute (DOST-FNRI) developed a healthy food guide, or the Pinggang Pinoy, specifically for teens aged between 13 and 18 years. The guide shows the recommended proportion per food group in every meal for male and female adolescents.

Malaysia: Ministry of Health calls for setting up of exercise clinics in all districts

The Ministry of Health has called for the setting up of exercise clinics in all districts in the country to encourage behavioural change to reduce the risk of getting non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which is on the rise, which an estimated 73 per cent of the total death in government hospitals were due to NCDs.

Paul Newnham, who coordinates the Sustainable Development Goal 2 (SDG2) Advocacy Hub secretariat incubated by the World Food Programme, discusses the double burden of malnutrition. This paradox requires changes to be carried out from household to production levels, and to involve all supply chains, for a sustainable, equitable food future.

Minister of Health Datuk Seri S Subramaniam recently revealed a 13-point guideline to promote a healthier nation, which includes limiting restaurants' operating hours to midnight, as well as a ban of advertisements on food and drinks with high fat, salt and sugar content that could lure children into buying them.

Dr Tee E Siong, president of the Nutrition Society of Malaysia (NSM), discusses effective and practical ways to curb the rising number of nutritional problems in the country, and how civil society can play a role in preventing diet-related nutrition problems. NSM calls for urgent, systematic and holistic measures to be taken, adding that educating and empowering consumers is the long-term solution to preventing nutritional disorders.

Lawrence Haddad, executive director of the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), highlights the global malnutrition epidemic, and states that alliances are key to overcoming related challenges, the private sector needs to be in the conversation, and the nutrition world needs to be involved in the food system.

Ten companies so far have received grants totalling $5 million from the Health Promotion Board (HPB) to create healthier staple food. Under the Healthier Ingredient Development Scheme, the companies will produce staples with healthier ingredients, such as wholegrain and brown rice in noodles and substituting palm oil products with lower saturated fat options.

Small and medium-size enterprises (SME) will get more support to conduct health programmes from next year under a new S$2-million initiative, the SME Health+, run by the Health Promotion Board (HPB), which aims to engage 60,000 workers over 18 months.

Partnerships important in addressing the Philippines’ double burden of malnutrition

In this article, Dr Leonora N. Panlasigui,President of the Philippine Association of Nutrition (PAN), Inc., and Dean Emeritus of the School of Nutrition, Philippine Women’s University, in partnership with the Asia Roundtable on Food Innovation for Improved Nutrition (ARoFIIN), discusses the double burden of malnutrition that the Philippines is facing, and thatcreating trust through an open and honest dialogue between both public and private sectors will ensure there are engaging means taken to solve the double burden for the benefit of all.

At an exercise and cooking demonstration at Hong Kah North Community Club, it was highlighted that people should take small steps toward a healthier lifestyle by exercising more regularly, going for health screenings for early detection, and watching their nutrition intake. The 2018 Health Calendar was also launched, featuring exercises tailored for women at all stages of their lives, healthy recipes, as well as useful information about breastfeeding and weaning foods that could help with infant nutrition.